Biden White House Appears to Back Away From Climate Announcement at Paris Agreement

The Biden administration appears to have backed away from its plan to use this week's United Nations climate talks in Azerbaijan to announce a multinational plea for quick action to cut greenhouse gas pollution.

According to two diplomats, as well as a draft press release seen by Politico, the announcement had been expected to have been made on Monday, when the COP29 climate summit opened.

However, the announcement was not made, and it is not clear whether the proposal was dropped in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's election victory.

Trump has promised to cut climate spending and increase the production of fossil fuels. He has also insisted that he believes climate change to be a hoax created to enrich China, while hurting the United States economically.

According to a State Department spokesman, the United States has been working, as part of a bilateral climate diplomacy strategy, "with partners and allies over the past year to encourage ambitious 2035 [national climate plans], highlighting the importance of keeping 1.5 degrees within reach."

The target of 1.5 degrees Celsius was set in the 2015 Paris Agreement as a limit to the rise of the globe's temperature since the beginning of the industrial era. Scientists say the world is almost certain to miss the target.

The multinational agreement would have called on involved countries to set targets on all sectors of their economies, including aviation, transportation, and agriculture. It would have also set the targets for greenhouse gases such as hydrofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide.

Trump's transition team has already prepared executive orders aimed at withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, with the president-elect having opposed the pact for years.

A U.S. spokesman would not confirm whether plans to make the announcement at this week's summit had been planned or dropped and if the result of last week's election changed the administration's stance.

The draft press release said the United States and several partners were to announce "ambitious" targets to cut carbon pollution by 2035 and that they would call on others to join their coalition.

Climate groups, however, are pushing President Joe Biden to announce the United States' 2035 climate target, despite Trump.

Biden should "seal a climate legacy and put in a bulwark of protections against Trump's practice," said Ben Goloff, a campaigner for advocacy group the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Paris Agreement's terms require that participating nations have until February to submit plans for cutting carbon emissions over the next decade. According to recent assessments, current targets that extend until 2030 will push global warming past safe levels.

The U.S.-led call that would have been announced would not have been binding but would still have been a signal to businesses to invest in clean-energy technologies.

A senior climate diplomat from one of the countries involved said one of the potential partners produced the draft release but added that it "clearly won't be published now."

The diplomat noted that the United States notified the country submitting the draft announcement that it was no longer pursuing the initiative.

But even while the Trump election may have been part of the reason for the Biden administration to withdraw from the multinational agreement, potential countries joining the pact may have also been an issue.

The European Union has been struggling to hit the Paris Climate Accord's February deadline, as its executive is in the middle of a transition period during which no major new policy commitments are decided.

A European negotiator further added that the United States floated giving the announcement at this week's climate conference with "a lot of parties but never pushed for it to become something more."

Trump's transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Monday that his intentions regarding the Paris Agreement have not changed.

"The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail," she said. "He will deliver."